MISTAKES DRAW EYES
Replacement refs dropping ball, but ratings are strong
If the NFL nears a deal with its regular referees, it should wait to finalize it until its own NFL Network’s Cleveland Browns-Baltimore Ravens game Thursday night.
Because when it comes to TV ratings, the replacement refs are bringing out plenty of rubberneckers.
Consider the accident scene following the Seattle Seahawks’ supposed win vs. the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football. ESPN’s 90-minute postgame SportsCenter, despite starting at midnight ET, drew 4.5% of U.S. households — meaning that for shows lasting more than 20 minutes, it was the most watched
SportsCenter ever. That 4.5% is also higher than the rating for any college football game last weekend. And the postgame rating might have been higher if ESPN had cut away from its apoplectic postgame analysts for shots of the replacement refs leaving the stadium in their clown car.
At this point, conspiracy buffs would have to concede this: Just because various TV networks have deals with the NFL worth billions doesn’t mean that their talking heads won’t rip the league. At this point, any NFL TV analyst — even on the league’s own channel — who isn’t ripping the replacement refs would stand out as a lone voice.
Monday’s game drew 10.3% of U.S. households. That’s down 2% from comparable coverage of a Washington Redskins-Dallas Cowboys game last year, but that game was MNF’s highest rated of last season.
In national ratings through the first two weeks, overall ratings were down 4% and on track to trail the last two seasons as the most watched since 1989. Overnight ratings for NFL weekend games were mixed — two time slots were up, two down — while NBC’s national rating for its Sunday night game, with announcers Al Mi
chaels and Cris Collinsworth excoriating the refs, was 12.9% of U.S. households — up 6% from comparable coverage of a 2011 Pittsburgh Steelers-Indianapolis Colts game. Said ESPN executive vice president
Norby Williamson, “If one thing has been proven in this, it’s that there’s an insatiable demand for the NFL.”
Even the biggest brand names can tatter. But Williamson says ESPN isn’t offering the NFL advice. “Our practice is to never tell our partners how to run their businesses,” he said.
But Gerald Austin will. The exNFL ref, who’s becoming a star as ESPN’s first-year rules analyst, says there’s one answer: “The only way to improve things is to bring the veteran officials back. There’s no quick fix. . . . I was in the league three years before I felt comfortable with the spirit of the rules and how they’re applied.”
ESPN’s Herm Edwards, an exNFL coach, says one thing has to change immediately: coaches’ behavior. “You’ve got to control the sidelines,” he said. “It’s out of control. It’s mob mentality. We’re playing a pickup basketball game in the park, where you’re calling your own fouls. And the coaches aren’t doing anything about it. When players see coaches going after officials, they think they can do it, too.”
While TV analysts are increasingly talking about little else except NFL officiating, CBS spokeswoman Jen
Sabatelle says the network has no plans to add a rules analyst. Fox uses ex-official Mike Pereira on-camera, while NBC uses ex-official Jim Dao
poulos in an off- air consulting role. Even if the replacement refs are replaced fairly soon, they might leave behind a legacy: greater news media focus on NFL officiating. “When the real officials come back, the first thing fans are going to say is, ‘Look at their mistakes,’ and that’s what the league didn’t calculate,” Edwards said. “The NFL brand is supposedly to be all about football, and we’re not talking football anymore.”
New ref on ‘First Take’: ESPN will announce today that Cari
Champion, coming from the Tennis Channel, will be the new, uh, mediator on ESPN2’s First Take (weekdays, 10 a.m. ET). Her role, starting Monday: sit between protagonists
Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless and try to dodge the spittle.
“The role really truly will be a bit of everything,” Champion said. “Sometimes you’re the ref, the judge, the jury or just trying to make them play nice in the sandbox. You have to be flexible, but I can go with the flow.”
She said nothing surprised her during auditions. “And I threw away all the advice and just was myself,” she said, “wasn’t trying to feel smarter than anyone.” Which means she will create a sharp contrast with Bayless and Smith.